This year's event was another great success! Twenty-nine Junior Girl Scouts in 4th and 5th grade attended "Step into STEM!" hosted by SWE-ECI on Oct. 21st, where they spent the day learning about engineering and participating in hands-on activities. A couple of the activities included creating a burglar alarm and working for NASA on a lunar lander! The day wrapped up with what turned out to be the girls' favorite event, which was an Egg Drop team activity. For this event, groups of two or three girls had a limited budget to 'purchase' supplies for their device which needed to protect an egg from cracking when dropped from an elevated height. We had many successful teams!

This event also included a Parent Educator Program (PEP) to advise parents and troop leaders on how to keep young girls involved in STEM. The seven attendees left with take-home activities and a list of website resources. Thank you to Clara and Victoria for leading this adult portion!

SWE-ECI would like to send a big thank you to the 14 volunteers that helped make this event possible! We had volunteers from SWE-ECI, The University of Iowa SWE collegiate section, and a new local chapter of SWENext for high school students. It's always wonderful to see multiple groups working together to get more girls interested in STEM! ​​

This year's event was another great success! Twenty-six Junior Girl Scouts attended "Step into STEM!" hosted by SWE-ECI, where they spent the day learning about engineering and participating in various activities. A few of the activities included using ASCII to "code" the letters of their name into a necklace, building a robot using a toothbrush head and pager motor, and making super slime! The day wrapped up with what turned out to be the girls' favorite event, which was an Egg Drop team activity. For this event, groups of two or three girls had a limited budget to 'purchase' supplies for their device which was aimed to protect an egg from cracking when dropped from an elevated height. We had many successful teams! SWE-ECI would like to send a big thanks to the 33 volunteers that help make this event possible. It's always wonderful to see the next generation excited about STEM! ​

After a great event last fall, three members of SWE-ECI's core board returned to Mt. Vernon High School bright and early on Saturday, March 28th to help the students prepare and practice for their Science Olympiad events. After a successful practice event at their Spring Invitational, the students are frantically redesigning and preparing for the State competition at Coe College on April 18th.

On January 24th, Prairie High School hosted the 2015 Iowa Regional Future City Competition which is a national, project-based learning experience where students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade imagine, design, and build cities of the future. Students work as a team and present their ideas before judges at Regional Competitions in January throughout the country. Regional winners then represent their region at the National Finals in Washington, DC in February.

SWE ECI held their annual outreach event 'Step into STEM' on Saturday, December 6th. Twenty junior girls scouts attended the event where they were guided by SWE volunteers through fun science and engineering themed activities.

On Saturday October 18th SWE-ECI joined the Mt. Vernon High School's Science Olympiad Team at one of their first event practices of the year. SWE was able to help students review last years designs, discuss how the events went, and what were the strengths and weaknesses of deigns.

Two members of the Mount Vernon Middle School Science Olympiad team came to present to the SWE ECI Core Board on Thursday June 5th. Clarissa and Zach, 8th Graders, came to share their experience that led the team to this year's National Competition in Orlando, Florida.

On Saturday, April 26th, the Dubuque Area SWE section hosted the 4th annual all Iowa SWE conference entitled “Focused Full Life.” Members from SWE ECI and other Iowa chapters attended the event which lasted all afternoon and concluded with a networking dinner.